family romance

English

Etymology

From family + romance, in psychoanalytic sense after German Familienroman.

Noun

family romance (plural family romances)

  1. A romantic story about a given family. [from 19th c.]
  2. (psychoanalysis) A childhood fantasy whereby a child imagines that their real parents are in fact royalty or otherwise of high birth; (loosely), the emotional ties linking the various members of a family. [from 20th c.]
    • 1990, Camille Paglia, Sexual Personae:
      Every encounter with friend or foe, every clash with or submission to authority bears the perverse traces of family romance.
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